Friday, April 23, 2010

Hiring An Experienced Buyer's Agent - The Proof Is In The Pudding

Many Lead Agents are too trusting when it comes to hiring experienced Agents to be their Buyer's Agents. They frequently take too much at face value, rather than checking. In hiring a Buyer's Agent who has experience, you want to ask them about their previous production. You want to know the units sold and sales volume in the last few years. You also must know the sources the business came from. Were all the sales handed to them from the Lead Agent, or did they create their own? Were they effective in converting ad calls, sign calls, and open houses to sales? How did they do with the Internet leads they were given? Were there sales that came from Internet leads? Getting the units sold by sources will provide you with the facts of their skills today.

You could potentially go to the MLS to see their production in the last twelve months. Some companies and Lead Agents, however, want all the production under their name exclusively. Require them to provide a transaction record from their Broker. You might even want the Broker to certify the results. There are a number of organizations that need a transaction record from the Broker that is certified when applying for membership or attainment of awards.

If they are unable to furnish some type of transaction record, ask them for a 1099. There are many of you who are thinking, "I couldn't do that"... Why not? They are asking you for a position with your team that is a highly valuable and prized position. They are trying to negotiate the best commission split possible for themselves. Based on that, they are a player and will bring income to you and the team that you don't currently have now. They should be willing to prove that they earned what they say they earned; that they are worth what they claim; that there isn't any puffing of numbers to make themselves look better to either negotiate a better deal or even just secure the position you have offered.

Champion Team Rule - There won't be a miraculous improvement of their sales performance in the first thirty days because they are with you.

Their sales performance, in the short run, will be about what it had been. You must see what they have actually done in the past because that's what you should expect from them for the next forty to ninety days. There might be a few exceptions to this rule, but they are infrequent. Tell them the proof is in the pudding.

Lastly, ask them for their conversion rates. Typically, what are the ratios from an ad call, sign call, or open house? How often do they get the client to come to the office for a buyer interview? When they have that interview, how often are they able to secure an Exclusive Right to Represent Agreement? Most of the experienced Agents you are going to consider will not be able to respond to any of these questions. This give you an opening to set the standard with them that you track everything; that you would expect them to embrace your system of tracking activities and results to be on the team. You also want to be clear that, because of the tracking, you will be able to help them be a far better Buyer's Agent and make more money. All of these are true. Also, because of the tracking, there is no place to hide. Their effort and results will be out in the open. You and they will know, without a shadow of a doubt, how they are really doing. They won't be able to hide or cover their tracks if they are off on their activities and production.

½ Theory - cut everything they say in ½

If you are considering an experienced Buyer's Agent who cannot or will not provide a reasonable level of proof of their previous production, you will need to apply the ½ Theory. The ½ Theory states that no matter what they tell you they did in production, you cut the number in half. I am not saying that all Buyer's Agents use fuzzy numbers. I am saying if you cut their production numbers in half, you won't get burned. They will probably have done at least that much in production.

If they are worth hiring based on half of the undocumented numbers, you probably have someone who is really worth having on the team. You will want to act quickly to sign them up. You can't make the mistake of taking everything at face value.

Dirk Zeller is a sought out speaker, celebrated author and CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 350,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. The Real Estate community has embraced and praised his six best-selling books; Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Real Estate Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies®, Successful Time Management for Dummies®, and over 300 articles in print.

Real Estate Champions is a premier coaching company. Training covers a wide spectrum from new agents, to seasoned, as well as those interested in real estate marketing or real estate investing.

You can get more information at Realtor's Ultimate Business Planning Kit, Real Estate Team Building

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